Deputy Chair of The Elders (Independent Global Leaders Working Together For Peace an Human Rights)

An energetic blend of stateswoman, physician, manager, politician, and international activist, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland has always led the world on issues of global significance. For over four decades, she has been dedicated to global interdependence, focusing on promoting sustainable development, increasing environmental awareness, and advocating for good health as a basic human right.

Gro Harlem Brundtland spent ten years as a physician and scientist, and 20 years in public office, including serving as Prime Minister of Norway – the first woman, and the youngest person to ever do so. She was Chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development, and the first female Director-General of the World Health Organization.

Her forward-thinking and global awareness continues to elevate her worldwide profile. Gro Harlem Brundtland now serves as UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, seeking ways to balance human enterprise and the planet’s limits.

The guiding force behind the “Brundtland Report” on sustainability over 20 years ago, she maintains her focus on the developmental impact of climate change and global warming.

As a member of The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, she contributes her wisdom, independent leadership, and integrity to tackling the world’s toughest problems, aiming to make the world a better place.

Considered the “mother” of sustainable development, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland attributes her passions for public health, the environment, and political activism to her father, a doctor and cabinet minister.

Our Common Future: Sustainable Development in a Deteriorating World

As the emerging effects of climate change are becoming ever more evident, we find ourselves not only facing a financial crisis, but an increasing pattern of worsening scenarios due to global warming.

To combat potential deterioration, poverty reduction must happen in parallel with emissions reduction, two of the most important challenges facing us today. We must simultaneously succeed on both fronts. This is what sustainable development is all about.

In this keynote, Dr. Brundtland explores potential solutions. She stresses the importance of taking the right steps across both the private and public sector to safeguard the planet on which we all depend, and move towards a future of sustainable development - a future that is better, more just, and more secure.

How Women's Rights Can Save the World

In this keynote presentation, Dr. Brundtland explains the importance that women, their rights, and their great impact on children, families and communities, has on global policy, economies, societies, and humanity - a fundamental issue across the world and across all religions.

The Health of a Nation, the Health of an Economy

One of Dr. Brundtland's enduring goals - advancing the status of health on the political agenda, and into the minds of government leaders and not only health ministers - still persists today.

During her time at the World Health Organization, Dr. Brundtland took the initiative, based on her experience linked to environment and development, to have a broad analysis made on the true relationship between human health and human development, and between health and the economy.

The results yielded core concepts on human nature, supporting Dr. Brundtland's mandate that when we invest in the health and education of all people, and in a clean environment, progress will follow and poverty can be overcome.

The Triple-Bottom Line

Global Health Security: Putting a Stop on the Next Pandemic

Who & the Battle Against SARS: How We Confronted & Contained the Global Expansion of SARS

Macroeconomics & Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development

A Woman's Perspective in Leadership

Books

Madam Prime Minister: A Life in Power and Politics

One of the world's leading woman politicians tells her inspiring story

At forty-one, Gro Harlem Brundtland, physician and mother of four, was appointed prime minister of Norway-the youngest person and the first woman ever to hold that office. In this refreshingly forthright memoir, Brundtland traces her unusual and meteoric career. She grew up with strong role models-her parents were active in the Norwegian resistance and involved in postwar politics. She became known as a pro-choice crusader in the seventies and entered politics as the minister of the environment. She appointed eight women to her second eighteen-member cabinet, to this day a world record, and was the leading figure in the process that led to the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. As director-general of the World Health Organization since 1997, Brundtland is the first woman elected to run a major UN institution. Along the way, she met a host of international politicians, including Margaret Thatcher-who did not share Brundtland's view on feminism-Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, and Hillary Clinton.

Brundtland writes candidly and with humor about raising children in the political limelight and about dealing with political opposition and stereotypes about women. Hers is a fascinating story of one person's ability to make a difference-globally.

Subscribe and get BCC News

I Accept Privacy Policy

Thank you for sharing the wisdom you have gained from your lifelong commitment to medicine and public health, education and sustainable development. You inspired the Michigan State University Class of 2008 to be concerned and engaged global citizens. We extend appreciation for your willingness to meet with faculty and students in the areas of public health and the environmental sciences.